Adobe Summit kicks off in London! Day one recap

Posted by Cassandra Faria on April 24, 2013

Adobe Summit hit London today with over 2,500 digital marketers, partners, agencies, analysts and journalists from 38 countries representing every continent. This year, our European Summit is bigger than ever, having doubled in size from just two years ago. So far today Adobe Summit has had over 5,000 social mentions.

Adobe SVP Brad Rencher opened Summit with his keynote, “The Last Millisecond,” where he spoke about that decisive moment between an action – a click, tap or swipe – and the experience. His tips for the last millisecond: listen, predict, assemble and deliver.

Joining Brad were Philippe Baumlin, an IT Program Director within the global IT department of Chanel and Alessandro Colafranceschi, UniCredit Group’s Global Head of Online & Mobile Banking. Both spoke to their unique brands’ use of digital marketing to reach and engage customers.

Great see what #Chanel is doing in the digital space with Adobe technology. Other luxury brands should take note! #AdobeSummit

The day continued with breakouts over the six different tracks. From social, to analytics, marketing and tech, attendees had their pick of a wide variety of sessions hosted by industry leaders.

The final session of the day, with Adobe President of EMEA, Mark Zablan, spoke about ‘Marketers as the custodians of digital’. He gave marketers 3 mandates:

1) Engage everywhere

2) Embrace rocket science

3) Connect the dots

Royston Seaward from Deloitte and Nissan’s Bastien Schupp took the stage to speak to their brands position in digital marketing with more and more users going digital and the automotive industry playing catch up.

Nike’s Stefan Olander and AKQA founder Ajaz Ahmed talked about ‘having the balls to make the calls’ when decisions need to be made. They even wowed the audience with an exclusive showing of a prototype image of the original Nike Fuel Band.

They left Summit attendees with one thought: “The most powerful force in the universe isn’t technology. It’s imagination.” A profound way to end day one.